Tuesday, March 31, 2009

So, where the heck has Cousin It been lately?

I got in the mood to clean my living room today. Top to bottom (minus the curtains... I'll save them for another day). My junk corner is No More, the shoe and jacket mountain that was behind the front door is Gone! My daughter's desk is now in my daughter's room. I cleaned the mirror, the panes of glass on the front door and the screen, the trim along the floor. You get the idea! And then I broke out Big Red. The vacuum cleaner. We are talking Big Job. I moved the couches and the other furniture, and I vacuumed where the sun don't shine. Then, all of a sudden there was a horrible noise. First the sound of a rock, or something, hitting all possible hard surfaces inside the vacuum and then the sound of the vacuum chucking it OUT. But then there was another sound that hadn't been there before. And it didn't sound good. I turned Big Red off, thinking "she can't fail me now!" and I turned her belly up. And then I saw a sight that I think I will remember for the rest of my days. And the first words out of my mouth were "Cousin It!!!" and then something like "holy crap". I started to pull at the hair that was wound around the spinning thing-ey (such a technical term). There was not only hair, but string. And I am pretty sure an elastic thread that belongs in my daughter's jewelry making kit. And then a hair pin--not a narrow bobby pin, but the kind for buns--looks more like a tall "V". How long it had survived with Cousin It I will never know. I had to get out the purple handled scissors to free the hair monster. Then I started to get a little grossed out. My daughter has a head full of hair, and up until January it has ALWAYS been down to her waist. Its her fault, right? I worked for probably a good 10 minutes before I could see that spinning thing-ey all nice and clean again. Cousin It is now free, and I would like to think Big Red will be working all the better from now on.